Sharpe James' Newark: No city for little guys

Basil Franklin insists he wasn't crying when he testified at the fraud trial of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James. But as he waited for an elevator on the fourth floor of the federal courthouse, his eyes were red and glistening.

"I was emotional, yes, but I wasn't crying," he says with the soft Caribbean accent that often made it difficult for him to be heard in the courtroom down the hall.

What made him emotional were the memories of how he had been hammered by his bosses nearly six years ago when he found himself caught in what prosecutors say was a lover's spat between James and Tamika Riley, the mayor's co-defendant.

"I just didn't know where it all came from," he says of an oddly worded letter of reprimand he received from his then-boss and James' associate Johnny Jones.

"I carried that letter around with me for months," he says.

And then he quit the city he served for 26 years.

It's early in the trial, but a picture is emerging. Little guys -- little compared with James and friends -- get themselves used by the big guys, sometimes get themselves hammered, and now, as the government and defense lawyers clash, the little guys are hammered again because they must relive what they don't want to remember.

Franklin was preceded on the stand by Adelino Benavente, a cop, one of the few who both works and lives in Newark, near Branch Brook Park.

"I am proud of Newark and I want to live here," he says.

He was proud, too, to be the mayor's bodyguard and driver. A detective who, by virtue of his job, necessarily hovered close to power. "I was doing my duty," he says.

But, somehow, this tall, lanky policeman assigned to protect the mayor of New Jersey's largest city finds himself in an appliance store on Route 46 one day buying an air conditioner for a woman named Tamika Riley and then delivering it to her third-floor apartment in Jersey City. Even helping install it after two James aides couldn't fit it into the window.

Benavente has to drive James, who owned a yacht, to regattas in places like the Hamptons, and when prosecutor Judith Germano tries to get him to explain what a yacht is, the police officer -- like most police officers -- has to say: "A yacht is something I could never afford in my lifetime." Still, it was obvious Benavente wasn't happy testifying against his old boss, talking about how he twice took James to visit Riley at night. He answered the questions as narrowly as he could, often saying, "I can't recall" when asked for details.

Then he has to listen to both Germano, and Riley's lawyer, Gerald Krovatin, reminding him he testified a bit differently when he talked to the FBI, as if, maybe, he's holding something back.

"I did the best I could," he says after leaving the stand, his long frame twisting as he walks because of a motorcycle accident a few months ago. "Still hurts," he says.

And, now that James is no longer mayor, Benavente is no longer a detective.

"No," he says. "I got demoted. Just a patrolman now. On light duty, but I don't know how long that's going to last."

A VISION BLURS

Franklin had a different sort of job, first as chief of housing production, then head of housing and economic redevelopment. After James became mayor in 1986, the Rutgers-Newark graduate worked on a plan to turn abandoned properties over to developers who first had to prove their qualifications and then come up with formal proposals. It was clearly something the mayor was excited about, too, Franklin thought.

"A lot of people had a lot of disdain for the city," Franklin said on the stand.

He recalled skeptics didn't believe he could persuade developers to build upscale housing stock that would draw market prices, and then Franklin testified how pleased he was to prove the skeptics wrong. Developers built -- and the houses sold for good money.

"A lot of people had vision," he testified, "and a lot of people had hope."

But suddenly it changes. He isn't sure why. Maybe the market gets too hot and too many people want a piece. The elaborate procedures for picking the best developers are suspended by his bosses. Now, anyone can come in off the street and ask for property. Franklin's job becomes one of "vetting" people recommended by other people.

Soon, odd things happen. James calls him and tells him to go to a furniture store on Springfield Avenue to meet with a former mayoral aide -- now an ex-con, Jackie Mattison -- who's looking for some of the land action. Franklin, the serious land-use planner, a dignified, soft-spoken guy with big dreams for a city, feels used as a messenger by his mayor.

More strange stuff: First he is told to help Riley, someone he knows is not a developer. Then he's told to stop. She demands to know why. He says he doesn't know. This guy who's trying to rebuild a city is caught in a place no one wants to be.

A few days later, at night, the mayor himself shows up at his house. Franklin has to go outside and get in the mayor's car, like a scene from a bad gangster movie. He says the mayor berates him for not knowing how to handle "high-strung" people.

Then the worst. A letter comes a few days later. From Johnny Jones, his boss, reprimanding him, but using language that, Franklin agrees, might as well have been written by someone from outer space because it makes no sense to him. Talking about a "research project," but Franklin's not involved in a research project. Talking about his public statements, but Franklin hasn't made any public statements. To anybody.

Clearly it's a warning. Don't get in the middle of the private lives of the powerful, man, or you'll be hammered.

"I worked so hard," he begins to say on the stand, but can't finish.

After he gets off the elevator, Franklin, still a South Ward resident, pauses at the glass door of the federal building and looks outside.

"I really love this city," says Basil Franklin.

Bob Braun may be reached at rbraun@starledger.com or at (973) 392-4281.